Know who and what you are voting for

**With elections approaching, the _Boar_ set out to find out how much the average student at Warwick really knows about the Students’ Union’s (SU) sabbatical team (sabbs).**

Although a large proportion of the students asked said that they did know the sabbatical team and their roles quite well, more than a third of those asked disagreed, saying that they did not know who the sabbs are or what their roles involve.

Nominations for the elections closed at the end of week 6 on Friday 15 February and campaigning begins at 9am on Monday 25 February, with polls opening at 9am the following Wednesday and closing at 9pm on Friday 1 March.

However, it seems as though a large proportion of the student population is ignorant of what role the newly elected sabbs will play at the SU.

When asked if they agreed with the statement “I know who the sabbatical officers are and what their positions entail”, 21 percent of students disagreed, with a further 16 percent strongly disagreeing.

When asked about the apparent ignorance of some students with regards to the role of the sabbs, Erin Davies, SU chair of council, said: “It’s really important for the students to understand the roles of the sabbs and what they do, as a lot of the work they do has a significant effect on the student experience.

“This is particularly important in the run up to the elections as the student body is voting on the people they feel will do the best job in the following year.”

With regards to overcoming this ignorance Ms Davies said: “Over the past three years of my involvement in student democracy I’ve fielded a variety of questions on the sabb positions and job roles, something which I’m happy to do and would encourage all councillors and officers to do in the interests of widening participation and understanding.”

When asked if she knew who the sabb team was, Jackie Lockinger, first-year English Literature and German student, replied: “No, who/what the hell is it?”

SU democracy and Union development officer Cosmo March said that this ignorance was nothing particular to Warwick, but insisted that this was not an excuse not to try to publicise their roles further.

He said: “Having spoken with other sabbatical colleagues at other Unions, I have learnt that the issue of students not being completely aware of how Union democracy works at their Union is not unique to Warwick.

“However, I do not feel we need to be part of this cohort of Unions. That is why part of my aim this year was to bring democracy to students who are not normally involved and therefore generate an interest and through that, an understanding of the system.”

Mr March also argued that he had already gone some way to achieving this. “The way an All Student Meeting works as opposed to a General Meeting definitely achieves that in my opinion. Instead of only around 250 students attending a meeting – well over 1,000 voted online”, he said.

“The student population as a whole will become more engaged with Union politics if it is presented to them in smaller, more manageable chunks – for example through social media, rather than lecture halls at ten o’clock at night.”

“I still feel that a lot more can be done to explain in simple and effective ways to students how democracy at Warwick SU works – I plan to do this with my remaining time as an officer.”

Other students confessed to a greater knowledge of who the sabbs are and what they do.
When asked how much he knew about the sabb team, Ali Mortlock, first-year Psychology student, said: “Nick Swain is the SU president, and then there’s one who manages the societies. There’s someone called ‘Bam’ who is the sports officer.”

Indeed, when asked whether they agreed with the statement “I know who the sabbatical officers are and what their positions entail”, 63 per cent of students did (with 35 percent strongly agreeing).

Second-year English and Film student Becky Long admitted that although she may know who the sabbs are, this is perhaps not for the right reasons and more should be done to make it known:
“I know more about what they don’t do, because people complain about it, but I don’t actually know what any of their duties are. It should be made clearer because we don’t really know what we’re voting for half the time.”

Second-year PPE student Patrick Mackenzie had a similar criticism, replying: “I have an idea about what they do, in theory, but I can’t say I ever see any genuine results they bring.”